Tales of the Tea Shop: Azula Takes on the Holiday
by Eduard Tubin
Summary: It is winter and Yule is looming. Azula and Karo have to cope with their families at this time. Their lives will change in unanticipated ways during the holiday season.
1. Chapter 1

**Tales of the Tea Shop**

**Azula takes on the Holiday Spirit**

**Part I**

Azula had no real moral objection to stealing the neighbor's newspaper. She did have a healthy dislike of crossbows and when the next door neighbor took pot shots at her with a large cross bow she hopped over the fence faster than even she thought possible given the time of the morning.

A crossbow bolt struck the newspaper as Azula reached the front door.

She dropped the paper in front of Karo who looked a the cross bow bolt with some interest.

"Do I need to know?" Karo peered over his glass and examined the newspaper and the bolt.

"I stole the neighbor's paper, " Azula sat on the red couch next to Karo. "He saw it fit to shoot at me."

"On one side we have an old couple with a poodle monkey – you could steal from them," Karo said softly, "but you choose to steal the paper from the other neighbor – the ex _Terra Troop_ marine and cop."

"We didn't get our paper today because the city has dug a huge hole and have blocked the front door of our house." Azula opened the red curtains and pointed at a crew of half a dozen men staring into a hole.

"This belongs to you." Karo handed Azula the steel bolt that had cleanly penetrated the newspaper and looked out the window at the dreary sight of late fall in Ba Sing Se and the even more dreary sight of unionized workers pondering their holes. "I wonder what business the city has digging a hole in our front yard?"

"They have discovered a new moon around the planet Uranus," Azula put her feet on the coffee table and began reading the article to Karo. "I don't think they consulted a marketing agent when they named that planet."

"Hold that thought...or rather don't." Karo rushed out the door and Mitsumi climbed on his shoulder to greet the mailman. He returned a few moments later with a fist full of fliers and a letter addressed to Azula.

Azula broke the red wax seal and opened the official looking letter. Several cards fluttered onto the coffee table. "Fire Lord Zuko has sent his regards and wishes us a festive and merry Yule. He heads a major industrial nation and he sends me a Merry – whatever it is agnostics celebrate – card. I had hoped for cash and a major chunk of expensive real estate."

"_Festivus – the Festival for the Rest of Us_." Karo flipped through the fliers hoping to find coupons. "I wanted to place an aluminum pole in front of the house one year but my mom complained it would attract undue attention."

"Dear Karo and Azula, Best Wishes for the Holiday Season – Lady Mai and Anya." Azula read dryly. "She sent us a coupon for a dinner at the_ International House of Noodles_."

"When cheap simply won't do." Karo tossed a badly typeset estate agent pamphlet on the table.

"Oh crap," Azula sat up and handed the letter to Karo. "Raise the alert level and man the parapets! My mother and my brother plan to spend the holidays in Ba Sing Se."

* * *

"Where did Uncle Iroh find a three foot tall plaster replica of a pine tree?" Karo sat at the Pai Sho table and admired the décor. The tea shop smelled of baking and made for a pleasant retreat from the cold and snow that blanketed the city.

"The life sized plaster reindeer with the red nose really creeps me out." Azula shuffled a deck of tarot cards. "He has put a good deal of effort into the kitsch – a kind of talent I suppose."

"We have our aluminum pole. Did I tell you about my aluminum pole?" Karo spun a silver piece on edge. "My _Festivus_ pole?"

"_Festivus_? The holiday you adopted to get out of shopping?" Azula let out a scornful laugh and began a game of solitaire with the colorful Tarot cards.  
"My mom hassled me to get rid of it but, I kept it all these many years." Karo complained bitterly. "So what happens? The city dug a big hole and put their own aluminum pole with a_ No Parking_ sign. _Festivus_ should be _the festival for the rest of us_ but the city has taken over"

"Your mom will be cheesed and will blame you for the pole because you're the usual suspect." Azula warned Karo. "She had spent the last week cleaning the house and trying to suck anyone in reach into making the house fit for a Fire Lord. Why do you think I have spent my days hiding in this place?"

Katara walked gracefully into the tea shop. She knew she would find Azula and Karo hiding in its warm insides in order to escape the frantic house keeping of Lady Zhao but Katara had come to fetch them so they could beat some rugs. She stood over Karo and cleared her throat.

"In the Water Tribe, we have a tradition of getting together for a village feast." Katara began quietly, "evidently you or Karo have a tradition of putting a metal pole in your front yard."

"We use an Aluminum – er – Aluminium pole – element 13 on the periodic table; between magnesium and silicon. _Caligula the High Lord of Festivus _makes it quite clear the pole must consist of alloyed aluminum for its lightweight durability." Karo lectured.

"Your mom had me apply some water bending to yank it out of the ground," Katara spoke with some irritation in her voice, "but someone set it in concrete."

"I didn't _do anything_!" Karo looked at Azula hoping for some kind of corraboation but she didn't say a thing. "I didn't put the _Festivus_ pole up yet; it goes up on the evening of _Festivus _because we want to sleep in the next day. The city put that pole there."

"Uh okay? I managed to get the pole and the concrete lump out of the ground, so, now we have a six foot aluminum pole attached to a lump of concrete – your mom was less than impressed." Katara stood with her hands on her hips. "Your mom sent me here to fetch you two so she would have help cleaning the house."

Lady Zhao met Karo and Azula at the front door and pointed at the aluminum pole laying on the ground. "Each year you try to display that stupid metal pole in the front yard for Festivus and each year I tell you how much I hate it. This year you put the pole up and set it in concrete! Did you or Azula dream up that little touch?"

"_We_ didn't set it in concrete!" Karo pleaded.

Azula examined the pole and then spoke up, "I think you removed the wrong pole. This pole looks like it belongs to the city."

"How do you know this?" Lady Zhao asked seriously. She was not the type who wished to waste a good rant.

"Dufus Karo's pole is aluminum," Azula explained, "but this pole is steel, and to cap it off this pole has a 'No Carriage Parking from Dawn to Dusk' sign on it."

"You and Karo have the task of beating the rugs." Lady Zhao changed the topic as she held out two brooms and pointed to a stack of red rugs in the front entrance.

Karo and Azula began the cold task of beating the rugs against the porch rail. Lady Zhao should have known better than to have Karo and Azula handle her collection of Fire Nation rugs. Karo nearly brained Azula with a broom and she retaliated by beating him about the head with a rug.

"Quit acting like idiots!" Lady Zhao scolded her son and Azula so they would focus on their task.

* * *

The next day, Lady Zhao puttered in her kitchen making delicate preparations for her royal guests. The weather made it difficult to predict travel schedules and no one could make more than an educated guess when Fire Lord Zuko and Lady Ursa would arrive. The snow fell heavily and Azula had decide to stay out of the way and hide in Karo's room. She sat at his desk and tried to make Mitsumi eat pieces of red paper she had torn into strips in order to see if the little lemur's stupidity did, in fact, have limits.

Karo read the newspaper Sunday Magazine while Azula kept looking out the window and fiddling with Karo's collection of desk toys.

Azula pulled on the brass chain on Karo's green and brass banker's lamp and said wistfully, "maybe we will get lucky and I won't have to deal with family on the holidays."

"I came up here to hide from my mother, not your family, "Karo said as he lay back on his bed and looked over the magazine. "I would tread carefully around her since she is at her wits end and will probably wind up her day by yelling at both of us."

Azula swiveled on the chair and sat back in delicate repose and sighed hopefully, "the weather might keep them out of Ba Sing Se."

"I know what will happen, you know what will happen," Karo spoke with all seriousness, "you will ignore everyone's feelings and do something socially awkward."

"What are you trying to say?" Azula spoke sharply.

"You have unresolved issues when it comes to your family and raccoons." Karo explained, "I can't explain why you and raccoons can't reach a detente but you had a miserable childhood and many terrible things happened. You hate your brother and can't quite figure out if your mom accepts and loves you and you find it difficult. You get nervous and the hurt little girl comes to the surface and acts out – then I wind up in the emergency ward with a concussion."

"And when can I book my next appointment with you?" Azula raised her eyebrow. "You should try your luck at psychiatry."

"Let's just say that I will make sure I have my medical insurance card on me at all times." Karo said indignantly. "Four more concussions and I will have as much damage as a chronic alcoholic or hockey player."

"Good to know you have a goal." Azula stood up and moved to the window and then exclaimed enigmatically, "Oh look! Cows!"

Lady Zhao didn't know where the cows had come from, who owned them or that the slaughterhouse would pay for any damage done. She had a dozen brown, doe eyes cows in her front yard and had noticed more coming down the street and she didn't want a dozen cows in her front yard or more in the street and told the police her exact feelings. The police officer and his companions told her the cows had come from a shipment from somewhere in the Earth Kingdom where they had cattle but had busted loose from a stockyard in the city while being unloaded. Lady Zhao told the police officer to move the cows because she had important guests and the cows would ruin the front lawn by urinating on it – which they did. She didn't ask for and had no need for steaming urine or cow dung on her lawn and she made this clear. The police officer told her, with calm candor, he had never dealt with cows in their uncooked state. He had the unenviable task of standing in a snowstorm and keeping the cows from wandering loose in the city until some cowboys arrived.

"Karo!" Lady Zhao yelled upstairs, "can you see the cows?"

"I don't like where this might be going!" Karo shouted through the door.

"I need, you, Katara and Azula to help the police get these cows rounded up," Lady Zhao said in a manner that told him he did not like where the conversation was going.

Azula said nothing but tried to escape out the window until she noticed that the front yard had filled up with cows and the storm window had been firmly fastened in place with bolts driven into the frame.

"Giddy up!" Karo said with a hint of dread.

"What makes your mother think I have the qualifications needed to herd cows?" Azula said crossly and begrudgingly followed Karo.

"Mom!" Karo protested, "I can't herd cows! What in my entire life has prepared me for ruminant control? I am pleased to eat beef but I have no idea how it works! I don't want to know either."

"Katara has gone out to help!" Lady Zhao had a wooden spoon in her hands, a determined look in her eyes and a stern tone in her voice; all of which told Karo he had to help herd cattle.

"Come on!" Azula grabbed Karo's arm' "yippee kai yeah!"

Azula shoved Karo out the door into the brown eyed face of a cow.

"You can't be serious!" Karo heard a loud crackle which meant some cow had received a schooling in the cold hard power of Katara of the Water Tribe. Karo couldn't see much given that he couldn't see past the cow staring at him.

"We don't do," Azula explained as she shoved Karo past the cow, "Katara does and we sneak off and grab a tea at the tea shop. In a few hours all these ladies will have found their way back to the slaughterhouse and well – either my brother and mom will have arrived and your mother will be too busy to yell at us or..."

"What?" Karo's feet slipped on the urine soaked sidewalk.

"She kills both of us."

* * *

"Your mom just walked in the door," Azula told Karo, "and we have only been here an hour."

"Does she look pissed?" Karo had his back to the front door and didn't dare turn his head from the Pai Sho board.

"Yep!" Azula watched as she approached and told Karo the very bad news, "she could simply have cramps; well...I doubt it - hide!"

"Where?" Karo whispered, "Duck under the table? Since she can see under the table that – oww! Why do all the women in my life grab me by the back of my collar when I screw up."

"I still have a _cow in the front yard!_" Lady Zhao growled at her son.

"We can keep it can't we? Free meat and all?" Karo squealed.

"Azula!" Lady Zhao showed not the least bit of fear of the Fire Nation Princess and had her by the collar but Azula did not give into whining. "Katara saw you two sneaking off to the tea shop when I asked you to help with the cows! Can you tell me what I did to deserve such disrespect?"

"Karo hates cows and well on a snowy day when we needed a warm cup of tea..." Azula said with a hint of embarrassment in her voice. "Did I say? Happy Holidays and I hope you enjoy the free side of beef?"

"I wanted to impress the Fire Lord and now we look like a bunch of country hicks with a cow in our front yard and a yard full of dung – explain how I will impress the Fire Lord if my house looks like the stoop of a barn!" Lady Zhao asked emphatically and in spite of the dignified Fire Nation robes she wore and her gentle face, she _did_ have a great deal of regal bearing combined with determined strength and making her angry paid no dividends.

"I guess we have some shoveling to do?" Karo knew this routine and knew they would end up shoveling ugly, brown frozen cow patties.

"You have that straight!" Lady Zhao lifted both Karo and Azula over her shoulder as Iroh waved and smiled politely at them.

"You are an idiot!" Azula whispered crossly as she glared at Karo from her position with her head dangling over Azula's shoulder.

"Me?" Karo said questioningly, "perhaps, but how does that help us in this instance?.

"I find this humiliating," Azula felt the cold as Lady Zhao carried them out of the tea shop, "maybe she will tire of carrying us."

"Don't count on it." Karo knew his mother could and would carry both of them for the five minute walk to the Zhao household and then more painful scolding and disgusting dung shoveling would ensue.

"Both of you," Lady Zhao said with an unwelcome strictness in her voice, "shut up or I will fill your life with much pain and sorrow! I have had some time to learn from Azula so don't push your luck."

"Azula already fills my life with suffering and I can't see what you have to add," Karo said as he bounced on his mother's strong shoulders.

"I will make sure I spread it out evenly and quite thickly upon both of you," Lady Zhaosaid without any sign of exhaustion in her voice. "You will long for death but not find it."

Karo and Azula said nothing more.

"We have a guest cow," Azula said as she eyed the cow standing under the chestnut tree. Azula chipped at the front steps with her shovel and marveled at how quickly the snow and dung had turned to something unspeakable in so short a time.

"Throw a tarp over it or mom will yell at us some more," Karo said indignantly. "I didn't expect this crap to freeze this hard. I thought glaciers took thousands of years to form."

"They do," Lady Mai stood over young Karo and sounded pleased with what she saw. "My my...the young Karo Zhao and the Princess of the Fire Nation digging up animal crap. Do you know Azula once made me and Ty Lee pick up bear poop?"

The cow caught fire.

Azula stood in a very delicate fire bending pose.

"Either God has appeared to us in a burning cow or I don't really want to contemplate..." Karo said in shock and spoke haltingly. The cow let out a loud and completely pitiful sound as it ran off down the street in terror. The smell of singed hair filled Karo with a feeling of vague nausea.

"Come on!" Azula screamed, "we settle this now!"

"Not today." Lady Mai said calmly as she straightened out her orange and gold robes.

"Grrr." Azula felt Karo's hand on her shoulder holding her back. "I have a good life now but I would do something unspeakable if I knew I could rid myself of the evidence."

Lady Mai bowed as she greeted Lady Zhao at the door.

"I see you have paid us a visit." Lady Zhao said respectfully, "I am very happy to see you Lady Mai. We had some cows loose and Karo and Azula were just making sure the place was back in order. They left one cow – did they come and get it?"

Azula waited for Lady Mai to call her out on being a vile cow killer or Lady Zhao to notice the smell of hamburgers and hair in the air. She didn't.

"It ran away," Azula offered.

"As long as its gone." Lady Zhao said with some relief.

"What is it with you and most mammals?" Karo said after the front door closed.

"How did I go from feared and respected military commander to a joke - from princess to parody?" Azula heated her shovel with some clever fire bending and pushed off a load of smelly sludge into the juniper bushes.

"We screwed up – it happens." Karo repeated Azula's fire bending move and his shovel turned a dim red as the flame from his hand heated the metal blade.

"I didn't know Lady Mai would show up." Azula continued clearing the path and with fire bending had made some decent progress cleaning up the mess. She watched sadly as the four traditional Fire Nation soldiers with the traditional armor walked up to the house followed by the Royal carriage. The deep red stained wood looked sapped of color in the dim light of a Ba Sing Se winder day.

Karo looked at Azula, "I know nothing."

A driver walked around the front of the carriage, around the four ostrich horses and opened the wide front door to the carriage and lowered the steps. Lady Ursa and her servant stepped onto the sidewalk; the servant carried a red box about the size of a cake box. Zuko followed behind and his servant struggled with a large red trunk almost to big for him to hold. The driver and Zuko helped the hapless servant carry the heavy trunk.

"You could think about forgiving your brother and Lady Mai," Karo suggested, "you know – forgive and forget?" Karo leaned against the old chestnut tree and shivered. Azula had insisted on waiting outside until she was ready but that was thirty bone chilling minutes ago and both of them remained leaning against the tree with their shovels beside them.

"People who say _forgive and forget_ have it backwards," Azula explained sadly, "because we all die it is really _forget and forgive_ since the dead can't remember anything and old age dulls our senses. People never realize that. The very same people say _let the past go_ and they don't realize a difficult life is like a prison cell where the past is the bars – you can let go of the bars but it doesn't _solve _the fundamental problem – you can't escape the cell. People say such things when they are too lazy to give real advice; too stupid to realize a true oxymoron and completely disinterested in your life on any account."

"Sorry," Karo sighed, "I'm getting cold."

"The optimist sees the glass as half full, the pessimist sees the glass as half empty and the realist wants to find out who drank half of his pint of beer," Azula patted Karo's shoulder.

"And idealists?" Karo shifted from foot to foot to fend off the cold.

"Are drunk."

"Hello daughter," Lady Ursa said quietly and kindly, "you look so unhappy and Karo looks cold."

"I didn't hear you leave the house," Azula put her hand to her chest, "you employing stealth technology now?"

"Good grief!" Karo exclaimed.

"Sweet Karo!" Lady Ursa hugged Karo until he gasped. "Are you keeping my daughter out of trouble?"

"Well," Karo shifted uneasily as if he had to testify before a stern judge, "I can only do so much."

Azula glared at him.

"Come inside," Lady Ursa said invitingly, "we came to visit you."

"What about Lady Mai?" Azula heaved the shovel over her shoulder.

"She came to rest and leave the duties of being a mother to our beloved wet nurse." Lady Ursa said. "She has proven invaluable for her political insight but that makes sense since her father had a keen sense for negotiations and diplomacy but the burden of being a mother and the Fire Lady has taken its toll."

"Lets go inside, "Karo insisted as his voice shivered, "I will utterly lose any idea of what my manhood feels like if we stay out here."

* * *

"Has your manhood recovered?" Lady Mai stood at the door as Karo fixed up his hair and primped a new Fire Nation uniform. Mitsumi slept on Karo's bed and for good measure belched.

"You heard that?" Karo blushed, "I – uh – am fine. Thank you."

"Lady Ursa finds you quite amusing." Mai said in her dry way, "I had hoped to have a civil conversation with your lover."

"Ha!" A brittle voice shouted from the upstairs washroom.

Mai walked to the bathroom door. "We used to be friends and we fought side by side."

"If Karo put you up to this," Azula said through the door, "I will deal with him most harshly!"

"We need to talk," Mai fidgeted outside of the door, "we used to talk, I miss those old days."

Azula opened the door and emerged neatly dressed, "you complained about most things as I recall."

"I love your brother," Mai confessed, "but he wishes to have the family together and so he came to persuade you to return home. He wishes to have his family reunited."

"Come to the Fire Nation where I will hang around the palace like some ghost of my former self?" Azula raised her eyebrow, "and what about my friend Karo? Oh sure, he's a queer little guy but I like having him around because he keeps me centered. What about Lady Zhao? I have adopted her as my second mom and she yells at me like I am her very own daughter."

"You could make new lives for yourselves in the Fire Nation." Mai offered and shifted uneasily when she realized Karo was listening to her words. "Your mom misses you terribly, your brother admits that he treated you badly and I admit could have done more to mend our friendship. Ty Lee sends her apologies and well wishes."

"I hate Ba Sing Se because the winters are bitterly cold," Azula pined, "the air stinks and the city has a snow removal budget that exceeds what the Fire Nation spent on their entire navy but somehow the snow still piles up. We have smells science can't identify and murder is just something you see on the street. The air causes mutations in the rats and most raccoons carry rabies. Arsenic gives our food extra punch and god knows the sewers are more hostile to life than the atmosphere of the planet Venus, but no I won't leave."

"I had to ask." Mai looked at her fingers.

"Aren't you two finished cleaning yourselves up?" Lady Zhao shouted from the bottom of the stairs, "I sent Mai to hurry you along! You two get down here and greet our guests!"

"Have you decided to move back to the Fire Nation?" Azula asked Lady Zhao as she played a game of tug and shove with Karo – she tugged at his collar as he walked in front of her while Mai shook her head.

"I have thought of it, "Lady Zhao said, "but given that Ember Island blew up and scattered one part of the family estate to the four corners of Creation and the family homestead on Henwa Island has forty thousand acres of mold infested bananas and an abandoned prisoner of war camp. I have my doubts."

Lady Zhao had donned her finest brick red and gold Fire Nation robes for the evening and Karo felt like he had not put in enough effort.

"Hello," Azula said coldly, "I see you look well brother."

Karo had the kind of feeling the overhead projector operator in the church service has when he discovers he had shoved the lyrics under the overhead and put them upside down. He desperately wanted to be somewhere else in the Universe but someone had decided on his location in the Universe. He hoped the feeling of abject humiliating discomfort would abate – but it didn't.

"Greetings my Fire Lord!" Karo pretended to fake Fire Nation zeal and bowed to Zuko, "I see you have come to spend the holidays with our scar – er uh – family."

Lady Zhao looked like she wanted to whack her son in the head with a spoon, Lady Ursa found him funny, Zuko had no idea what to think, Katara hung her head in shame while Azula savored the awkwardness. Karo wanted to badly to open a wormhole and dive in.

Mitsumi lacked color vision and to him, red and green amounted to different shades of brown which worked for him. He had eaten a mildly poisonous bug earlier that day and it gave him a mild stomach upset. Without color vision, he had no idea that the non toxic varieties of that class of bugs had red stripes while the mildly toxic ones had yellow.

He belched and decided to find his human.

Lemur hearing was quite acute. Mitsumi could hear well into the range that bats used for echolocation. He knew the Zhao house had a large number of bats in the attic but he had no way to tell anyone about them. He had heard the odd dead person but the humans seemed oblivious to the presence of the undead. Tonight he could hear humans having no fun at all and so he decided to spice up their lives. Mitsumi jumped off the bed and headed for the sound of human voices on his hunt for his human.

Mitsumi could smell very well. Karo smelled like lilacs and Azula had a smell like vanilla while Lady Zhao smelled like roses. He could smell the faint aroma of Katara who smelled like freshly baked bread. Mitsumi had come to recognize his little family by their gamut of smells.

He climbed on Karo's should when he arrived at the bottom of the stairs. Mitsumi had great fondness for the gentle Karo and noted with some alarm that he had the odor of desperate humiliation as the usual smell of lilacs and a blood clotting disorder Karo had.

Mitsumi began to hiccup and belch.

"What has gotten into that demented flying monkey now?" Azula held a glass of a sweet red punch in one hand and handed Karo another cup. Mitsumi belched louder as his stomach made progress on usurping the poisonous bug. With a final spasm, the offending bug flew across the living room and landed in the lap of Fire Lord Zuko. As a tribute to survival, the inch long yellow striped beetle shook itself dry and proceeded to walked across the crotch of Fire Lord Zuko.

"Dead bug comes to life on our holiday social event screw up list?" Azula asked but had no need for an answer for she knew that the social event screw up list had infinite length. "Nice one Mitsumi!"

Zuko brushed the bug off his leg and it wandered under the couch and beyond the reach of the large primate that had attempted to digest it.

"Can you please put the lemur in your room and close the door." Lady Zhao kindly suggested.

"Sure," Karo said quietly. Karo knew Mitsumi could open doors in the house and had the necessary dexterity to escape his room. Azula had a more escape proof room since the door knob screws had long fallen off and vanished in the depths of Azula's heap of junk. Lady Zhao had told Azula to clean it up on many occasions and Azula tried her best but the mess never went away. Karo tossed Mitsumi into Azula's room and took the doorknob back downstairs with him and handed it back to Azula.

Within a minute of returning back to the living room and after he had struck up a casual conversation with Lady Ursa, a loud crash shook the house followed by a series of smaller clangs.

"What the..." Lady Zhao exclaimed.

"Mitsumi knocking crap off my desk." Azula said scornfully as she walked to the stairs with the doorknob in her hand. "You had to put that evolutionary dead end of a soon to be doorstop in _my_ room."

"Do you need some help?" Lady Ursa asked and followed Azula up the stairs.

Karo forgot that the hatch to the attic crawl space lay inside Azula's closet but Mitsumi had not forgotten. Mitsumi did not grasp the fact the only way out of the attic space was that hatch and he had not set the hatch to the side of the hole or let it fall to the floor so when he crawled into the attic; the piece of painted wood fell neatly back into its hole. He found himself in a dark, very cold space with a large number of rabid bats, a few long dead mice, a dead rat that had begun go funky and two unwelcoming raccoons.

Mitsumi decided to panic and Azula found him standing on a piece of drywall the size of a basketball with yellow fuzz surrounding him. He had fallen through and had no idea how he had achieved this.

"Karo!" Azula yelled, "Karo? Get up here!"

"How?" Karo found himself unable to say anything else as he stood at the top of the stairs and looked at Mitsumi sitting contentedly like a clay Buddha on the red carpet with bits of roof surrounding him.

"You can know the position or momentum of a lemur but not both? All the subatomic particles in his body jumped three meters to the left or the planet shifted three meters east. I don't know but with him there are so many ways to lose." Azula stood next to her mother and scratched her head. "You have heard of that famous cat?"

"Huh?" Lady Ursa and Karo spoke in unison.

"A famous story in quantum mechanics and it begins with a cat." Azula let her enthusiasm for physics carry her along, "you begin with a living cat and you put it in a box rigged in such a way...mom has a blank look."

"I _have_ a blank look," Karo said as he looked into the black depths of the new hole in the ceiling.

"Can you fix that?" Lady Ursa asked with some concern as she noticed the coldness coming into the house and the noise of creatures in the attic.

"Quantum mechanics is what it is." Karo shook his head. "No one understands it except those people who see God inhabiting trees but given the fact it seems to make good predictions...and I am not remotely qualified."

"I meant fix the hole," Ursa said with almost saintlike patience.

"Oh, you mean I should patch the hole. Can I have that big piece of yellow cardboard on your desk."

"My thinking paper! No! I need that to figure stuff out like the wave function of a lemur." Azula said indignantly but went into her room to fetch.

"Oh sweet Roku's..." Karo jumped into Lady Ursa's arms while Mitsumi ran off downstairs to hide under the kitchen sink. "Sweet Roku's ghost! I saw a raccoon!"

"Whoa! Mom! Karo!" Azula came out of her room and looked oddly at Karo. "You saw a raccoon. The way you yelled I thought the Four Cows of the Apocalypse had turned up in the front yard."

"We have – jumping juniper bushes in July!" Lady Zhao had come up to see what had happened to Karo, Azula and Lady Ursa. "How did we get a hole in the ceiling and does it have anything to do with your pet lemur? I swear that stupid mammal breaks the scale for sheer stupidity!"

"We have struck a committee to fix the hole but," Azula paused for effect, "we have a raccoon or two and they have issues with us."

"First cows and then your lemur barfing bugs and now a hole in the ceiling with raccoons." Lady Zhao had a tone of utter exasperation in her voice. "I'll send up Katara – I can trust her not to do something rash or stupid. I love my son and your daughter's sarcastic and acerbic with has grown on me but insurance won't cover me if they set my house on fire."

Lady Zhao stomped back downstairs. Katara stomped up a moment later with an oil lantern.

"I like you young Karo but can I put you down?" Lady Ursa set Karo on his feet.

"Raccoons?" Katara asked, "What did you have in mind Azula? You trying to staple them to death?"

"We wanted to patch the hole with cardboard." Azula showed the yellow cardboard which had a diagram of one of her inventions.

Katara could read the words _frequency modulation_ in Azula's wobbling handwriting but had no idea what meaning the exotic symbols had. Azula had begun to take an avid interest in making wireless a useful mass communications medium and had decided with the help of Dr. Song of Ba Sing Se University that she could solve the problems that made it expensive and useless as a medium of mass communication. Others had failed but Azula had much of her old arrogance still lurking in dark corners of her character.

Katara rolled out Karo's office chair and balanced on the red seat and slowly raised the light.

"Oh freaking hell!" Katara fell off the chair and it went spinning off into a wall. She gripped her braided hair and her blue eyes revealed fear as she gasped out her explanation. "I saw two raccoons – and – and a whole bunch of bats!"

Lady Mai came up the stairs in her calm manner with a cricket bat.

"Your mom wants you to figure out some solution to the raccoons using this." Mai held out the cricket bat.

"I don't think I will like this plan," Karo backed up and grimaced. "Please tell me that my mother has embarked on a mission to bring cricket to the animals that don't have it."

"Please stand aside." Mai said and pushed past Azula.

Mai climbed in the hole – widening it somewhat. A series of fleshy thumps came from the attic and Mai jumped down from the attic with a blood stained cricket bat.

"I killed both raccoons." Mai handed the bat to Karo who had a look of utter revulsion on his startled face. "You can clean them out of your attic after they stop twitching."

"I wonder," Azula put her arm around Karo and spoke mischievously, "Karo only has one testicle, most guys have two, I wonder if Mai has three?"

"Should we handle dead raccoons without gloves?" Azula had the cricket bat and tried to figure out the body English she needed to keep her balance, hold the ladder and knock the dead raccoon through the hole.

"Just punt it!" Karo said. "Katara has my metal trash can and will catch it."

"It twitched!"

"You have the cricket bat!"

Azula punted the dead raccoon which now had the consistency of a plastic bag with goo in it; Mai had gone to great lengths to break every bone in the raccoon and it showed. Azula for all her faults had almost perfect co-ordination and she punted the raccoon through the hole. It made a squishy metallic thud when it landed in the garbage pail Katara held up. Lady Ursa and Katara looked away and grimaced when they heard the displeasing sound.

"Is that it?" Karo asked.

Creak, creak.

"I thought we had two!"

"I know Karo - you one balled assassin of joy!"

A few more creaks and Azula spoke up, "we found the second one."

"Dead?"

"I would think so," Azula said, "since his brain plopped out of his skull. Unless the biologists have lied all this time, the brain and the nasty bits of this animal that should be inside have fallen out. Can one of you send up a mop?"

"Eww!" Lady Ursa decided to head downstairs and bond with her daughter later.

"Fore!" Azula shouted and her voice was followed by the sound of a bat hitting a body turned to mush. The poor dead raccoon couldn't keep it all together and flew into the house in two pieces – one landed in the bucket and the second landed on the floor. Karo had the misfortune of having entrails land on him.

"If I take my glasses off does this look any more pleasant?" Karo fought back his gag reflex.

Katara held Karo steady as he had turned a certain shade of pale green. She made a few motions to move the wet soggy entrails into the bucket. Karo held his eyes closed as he felt bits of the raccoon fall away from him.

* * *

"Ding dong, Merrily along, the raccoons guts were spewing!" Karo sang as he followed Katara with the bucket of raccoon bits. "The cricket bat was swinging and the raccoons' brains were bleeding! La la lalala!"

"I will dump this over your head," Katara warned in a low angry voice and Karo _knew_ Katara meant exactly that and stifled back the second line of the song.

"What will you do with Rocky and Rocky II?" Azula asked tentatively.

"What would you do?" Katara hit the bottom of the stairs and the bucket sloshed.

"It doesn't involve eating it," Azula walked behind Karo and tapped his pointed red Fire Nation hair decoration, "I thought we could leave it outside and let it freeze, then take it on a ride on the trains of Ba Sing Se. Do you remember last year when the dead old lady rode around the city for days? I figure the raccoons would either be discovered and removed or vanish into the alternate transit universe where all the umbrellas and glasses go."

Lady Zhao stood next to Azula and kept her voice even but managed to convey her irritation as she spoke. "Will you take that awful mess outside," she commanded, "take it and put it on the back porch – or the neighbors will see it. "They think we're a little off anyway."

"Shouldn't we say a prayer?" Azula could not pass up the opportunity to fit in a little sarcasm.

"Take that outside young lady!" Lady Zhao pointed in the general direction of the back porch.

Katara and Azula dropped the bucket of raccoon on the porch and soon it began to freeze in the bucket. Karo decided to take a break from the general mayhem and decided to mourn the loss of his cricket bat. The cricket bat held out the promise of becoming valued sports memorabilia as it had come from the city cricket team – the Ba Sing Se Battlers. The Ba Sing Se Battlers had a league record that ranked beyond bad to really awful. Karo believed the cricket bat would become valued sports memorabilia in the unlikely event the Battlers quit sucking.

"I didn't get anyone here a Yule time gift," Azula entered the living room with a cookie and glass of punch in her hands. "I still think the raccoons can be salvaged with the help of a qualified taxidermist."

"Did you do something to patch that hole in the ceiling?" Lady Zhao got straight to the point and made certain with her sharp tone, she had the undivided attention of both Karo and Azula. "I don't want anything still living in the attic coming into the house before we can have the hole repaired."

"I would talk to you." Fire Lord Zuko said in a kind voice to the young Karo as Karo knelt under the dining room table trying to coax Mitsumi out from hiding.

Karo stood at attention and bowed. "What can I do for you my Fire Lord?"

"You can quit calling me Fire Lord, "Zuko smiled, "and you can tell me what you wish done with the title of Duke of Henwa?"

"I have not heard that title for many years," Karo grew suddenly serious. "A serious title like that implies this is a serious conversation."

"You have a right to claim your place as head of a great family." Zuko found Karo very odd; a man of impeccable moral character and great intelligence – a good person – but meek to a fault.

"A right but not a duty." Karo said tiredly.

"True," Zuko sat down to face off with Karo, "but you have a chance to help shape the Fire Nation's future through the influence of your family and Azula might like having two royal titles. She could call herself the Duchess of Henwa."

"Have you talked to my mother?" Karo shuffled nervously in his seat.

"She says its is your first decision and she will have to decide whether she wishes to join you." Zuko answered softly. He liked Karo and saw in him a good, moral person and the Fire Nation needed men like him. "She has had a long exile, and she had never hoped to return to the Fire Nation because she didn't think it possible."

"Why me?" Karo felt Azula pull on his hair decoration. "You could name some loyal friend or ally to the post." Karo snapped his fingers, "I mean Hakoda of the Water Tribe could become the new Duke and use the palace as a summer home for Katara. He is dating your mom after all."

"What!" Karo turned around out of surprise tinged with irritation to find Azula standing behind him.

"Tell Zuko you have dangerous democratic tendencies and will found your own republic if he has you take the title of Duke of Henwa." Azula said calmly, "and...that wasn't me – Mitsumi crawled on your back."

"Er...sorry. Can you tactfully ask my mother if she wants to move back to the Fire Nation?" Karo said apologetically and patted Mitsumi in spite of his desire to choke him.

Azula placed her hands on Karo's shoulder in a comforting manner and shouted, "Lady Zhao! Want to move back to the family estate with Karo and me!"

* * *

"I can't tell you how glad to say goodbye to my brother and Lady Mai." Azula sat at Karo's desk chair and yawned for it had been a long and strange day. Mitsumi lay beside Karo and clucked and squealed.

"Did you cover the hole in the ceiling?" Karo placed his glasses on his night stand and then rubbed his eyes as he savored his headache. He picked up a warm folded towel and placed it on his forehead.

"We have a yellow piece of cardboard stapled over the hole." Azula said reassuringly, "and now we have a defense against all creatures of the night as long as they don't weigh anything or walk on it or breath heavily – even urine might..."

"I get the picture." Karo waved his hand in order to signal a stop to Azula's rant.

"Do you know what my family owns on Henwa Island?" Karo lay back on the bed and waited for the warm cloth on his head to loosen his headache. "I can see myself going to the market in the city and singing – Come Mr Tallyman, tally me bananas. I hate bananas and their ilk. We have a defunct prisoner of war camp – perhaps we could open up one of those educational summer camps for kids. We could name it _Stalag 14_?"

"Your mom promised to think about the idea."

"I have no idea what a duke does," Karo protested.

"I can teach you all that royal court stuff and whipping peasants is easy enough." Azula snickered, "I had the best education in the Fire Nation and so you can always ask me if the issue of court etiquette comes to the fore."

"Princess_ I can belch out the Fire Nation anthem_ Azula?"

"I won that bet and Mai had to pay me a gold piece." Azula stood up from the chair, "it has been a long day Duke Karo Zhao. I need my beauty rest because my mom will be over at noon to take me out for lunch. Do you want to join us?"

"Better and better," Karo lay back and sighed in frustration, "this will be the usual lunch? The 'When will you two settle down, get married, oppress a few peasants and have kids to make me a grandmother?' lecture that makes me feel embarrassed and speechless."

"At least she didn't get drunk," Azula said as she stood a the foot of Karo's bed and stretched. "You have emerged this evening without a concussion. I will see you tomorrow and we will go have lunch with my mom at Uncle Iroh's tea shop."

"You know what I find most ironic?" Karo spoke as Azula turned in the doorway, "when we got the letter from Zuko, you told me you wanted a whopping bunch of cash and real estate. If I take the title of Duke of Henwa, you may get that!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Tales of the Tea Shop**

**Azula takes on the Holiday Spirit**

**Part II**

"I have a difficult question to ponder." Azula sat at the dining room table and held up the _Festivus_ pole in her hands.

"We can't dodge lunch with your mother," Karo sipped his tea and halfheartedly read from the business section of the newspaper.

"Do you call it aluminum or aluminium?" Azula tapped the pole on the floor, "you called this an _aluminum alloy_ pole but shouldn't you call it an_ aluminium alloy_ pole?"

"I found it in an alley behind the park," Karo replied, "and I think it once belongs to the local Triad or Yakuza – a debt collection tool I think. I asked my Grade 8 science teacher what kind of metal they used and he said aluminum. He also set fire to the third floor of the high school when he dropped pure sodium into a lab sink. Poor Mr. Nai we hardly knew you."

"Did he die?"

"Mr. Nai? Oh no! He lost an eye and an arm and now works the swing shift as the sandwich board guy outside of a Chinese food place across town." Karo explained, "the school board decided he should not work near kids – they listened to the hushed voices of their team of lawyers."

"I entered science because I sought the purity of truth," Azula complained, "and the same scientists can't decide how to pronounce the name of the element that comprises eight percent of the crust of the Earth – fools!"

"I have yet to loose sleep over this."

Lady Zhao walked into the dining room and peered at Karo, "When do you plan to get rid of the dead raccoons?"

"We have no idea what to do with them," Karo answered delicately. "We have lunch with Azula's mom and she will be over soon to pick us up so final funeral arrangements will have to wait."

"Put them out with the trash." Lady Zhao tapped the calendar that hung on the wall, "and let the city landfill deal with them – we pay good taxes after all. They will spread disease if they thaw out."

"Okay." Karo stood up and headed for the back door to fetch the frozen racoons.

Lady Zhao raised her hand, "Wait! Who opened that big trunk the Fire Lord left here last night?" Lady Zhao pointed at the open trunk still resting in the living room. "You can't open your gifts from the Fire Lord until _Festivus_ morning! Now my silly son has me doing that."

"Hold on!" Lady Zhao heard her son let out an exasperated sigh, "When you take the trash out, get rid of that stupid pole and can you use a little fire bending to clear off the outside walk. We don't want anyone to slip and get hurt."

Lady Ursa's carriage pulled up to the Zhao house and the long past its prime chestnut tree and unmanageable juniper bushes that looked like the landscaping equivalent of a bad toupee over the small front yard. She walked up to the front door and noted with some amusement a sign in Azula's handwriting that read 'Go Away – We Already Have All the Religion We Need'. She raised her gloved hand and pounded the brass knocker that hung out of the mouth of a cast bronze dragon.

Karo answered the door and passed by Lady Ursa with a polite bow, a trash can and an aluminum pole.

"May I ask what you are doing?" Lady Ursa asked carefully.

"_Festivus_ Funeral," Karo said as if that was a self evident fact, "for the raccoons your daughter in law Mai saw fit to beat into eternity. Not really a funeral, more of a composting – off to the landfill they go."

Karo used a clumsy fire bending motion which he had intended to warm up and thaw the ground in order to properly clear the snow from the sidewalk; but he had forgotten the raw power of fire bending to incinerate juniper bushes and they caught fire. Karo dropped the pole and threw the pail into the burning bushes.

"A cremation...how fitting." Azula looked out the front door.

Katara did a startlingly fast water bending move and the snow on the roof slid in one piece, turned to water while falling and soaked Karo and narrowly missed drowning Lady Ursa and rushing into the house.

"Please! Take a seat." Azula said to her mother, "Karo will have to change his clothes."

* * *

"One day when Lady Ursa met a fellow," Karo sang gleefully as Iroh and the young Meng served them a light lunch, "The Hakoda Bunch! - ow!"

Azula elbowed him.

Iroh had taken the usual kitsch level up beyond the number ten mark on the dial. He had placed small wire pine trees on all of the tables and had bowls of sweet, hard candy on the table. Iroh had a model winter village set out in the large display window at the front of the restaurant and a model steam locomotive wound its way through the small town and whistled as it sent up puffs of smoke. Azula had arranged some of the toy people in a firing squad and two hobos rode on the top of a Pullman car.

Meng had a fancy red dress in keeping with the season and she puttered around waiting on tables.

"Happy Holidays!" Iroh said sweetly as Lady Ursa stood up and they hugged.

Azula sipped tea and nursed it because her nerves kept her from feeling hungry.

"Beautiful Azula and kind Karo," Iroh patted both of them on the head. "Meng and I have prepared a fine lunch for all of you. We have the finest holiday teas and tasty treats."

"Have you started making wedding plans yet," Lady Ursa smiled at Meng as the young girl poured her a new cup of warm tea. "We should start planning the wedding because I want to give my daughter the best Fire Nation wedding and I'm not getting any younger."

"We have plans," Azula reached under her vest and produced a catalog for the hardware store Earth Kingdom Tire. "A manager of the Earth Kingdom Tire store can legally marry us, so Karo and I have asked him. He costs a good deal less than a religious official and he sells lumber."

"As the other side of this equation, I can assure you that we will not be married by Stingy Tom!" Karo looked at Lady Ursa with an apologetic look. "This is the first time I have heard about this; I had assumed a more upscale locale for a wedding than the place that sells hammers."

"Have you ever experienced a Fire Nation wedding?"

"I missed out on Zuko's," Karo scratched his cheek, "but how bad can it be?"

"If the Fire Nation put as much effort into science as ceremony, we would have a cure for cancer! We would have interstellar flight and finally understand where pens go!" Azula scowled, "a Fire Nation wedding has more parts to it than a Fire Nation destroyer."

"We are way off base here!" Karo cleared his throat. "We haven't even decided when to get married and we still have our schooling to finish. I mean I do intend to marry you but are we ready?"

"Have you decided on the other question, young Karo?" Lady Ursa asked as Meng brought bowls of soup possibly as a means to overhear as much of the conversation as possible.

"I feel like I have to eat a saber tooth moose lion and we all know one can only eat a whole moose lion one bite at a time." Karo nodded pleasantly as Meng placed a bowl of soup before him. "I will have to take some time to decide."

"If we went back to the Fire Nation, I could continue my studies at the Fire Nation University of Henwa Island." Azula stirred her soup nervously.

"Why do you have a sudden interest in becoming the Duchess of Henwa Island and I hope this doesn't involve new ideas in rocketry." Karo sipped his soup and looked at Azula – he knew if Azula wished it then he would cave in because he did love her.

"Ponder this," Azula patted Karo's shoulder, "the kind fates have given to you a province of the powerful Fire Nation. Fire Lord Zuko needs your economic expertise to help him form a modern nation and you would have a great deal of influence in the economic policy! Imagine a modern industrial nation coupled together with your own modern economic ideas?"

"I don't have the kind of debauched character or corrupt nature needed to survive in politics. We invented democracy as the most efficient means of finding such debauched people and quite frankly I don't really want to rule Henwa Island." Karo looked around nervously and noticed Meng standing off in the distance watching him.

"The capitol city Komatsu has a provincial legislature that has taken on most of those tasks." Lady Ursa said reassuringly, "Zuko wants to restore the nation and place the noble houses back in the hands of decent hardworking people. He sees you as a visionary with moral strength and emblematic of the new age of peace in the Fire Nation."

"You know the all out hysterical laughter does not help me with my self esteem issues." Karo told Azula as she laughed and held her gut.

* * *

"I think I have invented something called Caller ID." Azula held out the Zhao's telephone as Karo sat sulking on the couch a full hour after they had returned from lunch with Lady Ursa. "If someone calls I ask them who they are and they tell me – now I have to fit this in a box that sits next to the phone."

"Did you have to laugh when your mother complemented me?" Karo sat on the couch with his arms crossed and he wore a bitter look on his face. "Don't you see me as a visionary?"

"I was laughing with you, not at you."

"Really?" Karo's voice rose optimistically.

"No." Azula put down the phone and sat next to Karo, "you are my mate and I love you but you have to admit you do not have the determined will of a fire bender in the Fire Nation. Before you get angry, I think your attention deficit is all for the good: it keeps you out of real trouble. You have always remained true to yourself and followed your own heart. I taught you fire bending and at first I found you a terrible fire bender – you lacked focus or so I thought."

"What do you think now?" Karo asked quietly and still pouted.

Azula slapped her knees as she breathed in. "That you have a different way. Fire bending doesn't fill you with the lust for power and control like it does with so many of us. You have never had much use for fire bending because you have no desire to impose your will on others. Zuko wants you to return as the Duke because he sees this – a simple and uncomplicated man."

"I've never had much of a gift for introspection," Karo admitted to Azula. He knew this was a self evident fact; Azula could not have missed his naïve nature.

Azula leaned on Karo's arm and asked quietly, "so a Duchess I shall be?"

Katara came in an hour later and found Karo and Azula asleep on the couch as often happened in the late afternoon after long and dull classes.

Lady Zhao walked in and put her hand on Katara's shoulder. "Karo will be the Duke of Henwa Island. I haven't decided if I will join them or not and I imagine you wish to decide if you wish to remain with our household."

"I have a choice?" Katara placed her hand on her chest.

"You have become part of our family in a way." Lady Zhao said.

* * *

Karo had to admit the events had transpired far too quickly for him to digest. He sat at a finely polished pine table in the Royal Airship – a large silver cigar shaped rigid airship named the _Roku_. The airship held him and Azula as well as the Fire Lord, Mai and Anya. Karo had ridden on an airship before but the_ Roku_ had much more luxury, more creature comforts, a sleeker, faster design and far more helium than needed to give everyone a _Donald Duck_ voice. Karo did not think taking off in a balloon in a blizzard seemed like a poor idea but Zuko and Captain Dokung of the Royal Air Force assured him the new generation of rigid airships could perform in inclement weather.

"Would you like some tea Duke Karo?" One of the servant girls approached the table and held out a tray with a teapot and a set of cups that had delicate red fire lilies in a pattern around the rim.

Karo had not yet grown accustomed to flying in a snowstorm and he looked out of the window into the gray abyss and realized he could see the city of Ba Sing Se and its houses in dim procession passing hundreds of meters below him and decided to decline the tea politely, "I might want to have some later, thank you. Please leave the tea."

The servant placed the metal tray in the middle of the table, bowed and left without a word.

"How long do you think it will take Lady Zhao to pack up the house?" Azula walked in and looked at Karo.

Lady Zhao had remained in Ba Sing Se with Katara to finish all of the tasks required to move the household to Henwa Island and promised to join Karo and Azula in the spring. Two decades of living took a great deal of time to pack up and move. Lady Zhao had decided to move back to Henwa Island under the condition that Karo tear down the old and oppressive mansion and rebuild something new.

"It won't be before _Festivus_," Karo chuckled but meant what he said. He had only three days to prepare for his return to the homeland and had packed only what he needed and what he badly needed was a good contractor, a decent house plan and an architect. His mom had laid out the tasks required of him and he knew he had a whole season of work ahead of him.

"We have been aloft for only a half hour and you already look sick," Azula poured out some tea for both of them. "Do you think you will have the old house torn down and the new one ready before your mother arrives?"

"We have more time than that," Karo said, "after all we can rent a flat in Komatsu. I haven't seen the site of the old house, so I haven't had a chance to study the problem. I want a nice home, dignified but understated; something that doesn't brood like a temple ruin over the landscape. I hate the traditional 'Fortress Fire Nation' kind of home; I would like a house to fit in the landscape not conquer it. I liked the tan brick of the old townhouse but I don't know what I would like in a home for the family."

Karo felt a tremble pass through the floor and an heard a slight change in the pitch in the engines. The ship listed ever so gently to the southeast as it flew past the inner wall of Ba Sing Se and sailed over one of the guard houses. Karo had no sensation of motion since the airship cruised at a constant eighty kilometers an hour and he had that uneasy feeling as he looked out of the window that came when the intellectually uninformed areas of the brain could not decide if the ground or the airship were in motion.

"Say good bye to Ba Sing Se," Azula said unemotionally as the guard tower slid by.

Karo watched the tower through the haze of the falling snow and said moodily, "I spent my youth in the confines of that city."

Azula looked at him for a moment then spoke starkly, "don't get maudlin."

* * *

Karo and Azula had seen nothing of Mai and Zuko and their daughter even by the second day of the voyage but not for lack of snooping. The 'Royal' section of the airship had two mean guard who merely held out their swords to discourage Azula and Karo from going further aft. That didn't mean they couldn't go every other place on the ship from the galley. On the second day they found the cockpit in the gondola of the huge ship.

The captain pretended to not notice them as he sat at a steel framed high back aviator's chair with gray cloth covering the seat and back. He stood a full foot taller than Karo and sported a short, combed back head of red hair and a stubbly beard and wispy mustache. His narrow face looked decidedly un - Fire Nation. Another man sat next to him and watched dials, while a third stood and manned a series of bright red valves and and controls.

He stood up and greeted his guests, "welcome to the cockpit of the grand Royal Airship – the _Roku_." He swiveled on his chair and faced Karo and Azula. "This is where it all happens and we make your voyage as pleasant, as smooth as possible. I am Captain Dokung."

Azula could not help but stare at the tall captain and his odd red hair but that did nothing to keep her from speaking frankly, "we have spent the last two days flying through the mother of all storms, our voyage has not been smooth."

"We will leave that behind us in due time," the captain spoke with all confidence, "and this ship will handle all weather."

"The first guy to climb into a balsam glider said the same thing as he fell off a cliff," Azula said contrarily. "He kept saying 'everything going marvelous, just marvelous' until he realized the fall didn't kill you but hitting the ground did."

"If you hear me saying 'marvelous' then panic."

Karo had grown uneasy with the conversation because he found the tall red haired captain a bit of an intimidating character. "We have the gala holiday dinner tomorrow," he said tentatively as a means of ending the conversation then and there. "We should rest and enjoy some 'down time' before we have to mix with the Fire Lord, Lady and scariest of all, your mother."

"Merry _Festivus_!" The captain chuckled as the two of them left the cockpit, "don't worry, everything is going marvelous, just marvelous."

* * *

That night Karo couldn't sleep and Azula had a barrage of complaints about the cruise including the not all too unlikely fact that the Fire Lord and Lady had hidden away in order to ignore her until the grand holiday dinner the next evening. The diesel engines droned on as Karo lay back in the top bunk he had claimed. The ride had grown smoother as the ship passed over the ocean at mid latitudes and the skies had cleared. The dirigible housed the cockpit and the flight crew in the gondola and the Royals and guests stayed in the upper deck which lay inside the bottom of the cigar shaped envelope with the staff to attend to their needs. Karo had ridden on an old Fire Nation military airship refitted for use by the Fire Lord in some haste. The interiors looked dull and unfinished. The _Roku_ looked like a true airship with interiors done in the red carpet and yet well appointed to make surfaces comfortable. Wood tables and red velvet and comfortable linens made the voyage seem more like a cruise than a necessary trip.

The _Roku _struck Karo as cruise line comfortable but the idea of building a ship to carry him over the ocean with a covering of linen and a soft aluminum and magnesium alloy frame made him fear for its frailty. The use of helium meant it wouldn't blow up all of the sudden but to Karo everything looked so frail and he did not trust engineering that reduced things to the minimal amount of weight needed. He had grown up in Ba Sing Se where even mail boxes had to withstand the crushing force of a glacier without folding. At least this night, the weather was clear and calm and a dim moon lit the endless ocean. He watched something fall past the window and his heart gave a start.

"A bird hit the ship," Azula explained.

Karo found that less than reassuring, "and so - when do we hit the ground?"

"How does the first week in May sound?" Azula said mysteriously, "my mom wants us to marry and I figure that if you have a title then I should snag your wealthy ass before you find another cute fire bending chick with mental problems."

Karo coughed, "are you pregnant and hoping to avoid a controversy?"

"No!" Azula objected, "but you are my mate and I love you so why not make it official and get my mother off my back."

"Okay..." Karo said cautiously, "we marry in the first week of May?"

Azula chuckled, "who would have believed this! I could not have picked a stranger fate for myself - I will end up as your wife!"

"Any regrets?"

Azula made a solemn clucking sound, "plenty but none of them involve you."

"I don't say this often but, " Karo said, "you are my mate and I love you."

"I do reserve the right to cheat on you with the following people..." Azula lay on her back and chuckled.

* * *

Azula had woke up and found Karo had left the room and Azula could not find him. She walked through the lounge – and couldn't find Karo but did find Mai and Anya. Anya had a fancy red dress and waddled around the lounge making grunting sounds.

Azula looked at Mai, "where did that imp I call a fiance get to?"

"He had some tea and then left." Mai said dryly. "Mitsumi came in, played with Anya and she pulled his tail and he ran off in a panic."

Azula shook her head and walked out of the lounge muttering, "thank you for being less than helpful. If I were a Fire Nation duke with one testicle where would I go to?"

Karo walked up to Azula and answered her question with one word, "insane?" Karo shrugged his shoulders, "I told your mom about our wedding plans and she has already begun planning the wedding and I imagine you will have to wear a dress."

Azula shuddered, "it is in the public domain then?" She pushed Karo gently in the direction of the lounge. "Mom will now track me down and give me a hug and a kiss and begin sizing me up for the fanciest and itchiest Fire Nation wedding dress in the world."

"She almost cracked a few of my ribs -" Karo jumped back when Lady Ursa came down the hall.

"Sweet Azula!" Lady Ursa wrapped her arms around her daughter and kissed her cheek, "at last you and the sweet Karo will wed this spring! I am the happiest mother on the planet."

Karo, Azula and Lady Ursa walked into the lounge and their general jovial mood irritated Lady Mai but spun up Anya who ran around between the tables doing what toddlers do best – smacking her head, evading the adults and yelling. Anya in her delicate robes and hair in a fancy braid bumped up against Karo's legs, looked up as if she could not understand how Karo had come to stand there, backed up and waddled away.

"What is all the excitement?" Mai asked Lady Ursa.

Lady Ursa smiled proudly, "Azula and Karo have set a date for their wedding in May." As she spoke she looked at Mai with a serene look.

Mai glanced at Azula then looked at Karo, "well, hard to know what to say. Azula has my congratulations and Karo has my pity."

* * *

Holiday dinners always proved awkward but fancy dinners on an airship during the years after the Great War amounted to something which had not been properly and thoroughly tested. The galley did not have enough room to prepare a large meal without problems and the cook they had brought along had trouble juggling his work in a room with less room than a large broom closet. The ship smelled of roast Komodo Chicken and something that hinted at mincemeat pie.

Azula lay in her bunk waiting for the servants to summon her for the feast and she read a Lucky Starr novella she had brought along for entertainment. She found herself growing irritated with Karo's pacing across the small bunk room and decided to state as much, "I have come to an important part in my book where Lucky Starr has started to talk telepathically to the evil Venus frogs."

"How can you stay so calm?"

Azula raised her eyebrows, "you of all people should know dime store science fiction novels about intergalactic heroes always end the same way – the hero prevails."

Karo looked out the window at the ocean lit up by the late afternoon sun and sighed as he took off his glasses to clean them, "I am happy to marry you but this has begun to sound like one of those ceremonies with all those fancy Fire Nation ceremonies that will trip me up and let people hear me stammer."

"You don't have a stammer," Azula spoke from behind the book. "You have to ignore my mom – she likes weddings – don't let her get on your nerves."

"I always stammer when I have to speak in public," Karo threw up his arms. "It's like my stomach and brain conspire to make me sound stupid when I have to get up in front of a group and give a speech and we Fire Nation traditionalists love ceremony. The more long winded and elaborate the speech; the better the ceremony."

Azula could smell something cooking in the kitchen as she sniffed the air, "think of it this way – you won't have to speak at your funeral."

"That will be held shortly after I begin my speech at the wedding!" Karo faced Azula with his arms crossed, "you know I am not a strong man full of confidence and whatever it is that strong men have - I know it isn't glasses!"

"Except for a few lines of ritual Fire Nation Chinese, you have nothing to worry about."

Karo grunted in annoyance as he put his glasses on, "I _can speak Fire Nation Chinese_ or have I lived all this time in some kind of delusion?"

Azula sat on her bunk, "well if you want to stress out about public speaking then worry about your thick Earth Kingdom accent." She smiled at Karo, "I love your accent but Earth Kingdom Chinese and Fire Nation Chinese are not quite the same language – but you know this."

Karo did know this but the use of the same written language smoothed over many problems. "I didn't think it mattered, I do speak both and no one has any problem understanding me." Karo said with a hint of panic in his voice. "What have I been mispronouncing?"

Azula mulled it over for a moment, "you roll your 'r's'. It gives you a charming accent but some in the Fire Nation will find it a bit unsettling."

Karo felt a bit of irritation, "do I have to rid myself of that?"

"No." Azula said in an effort to try to calm down her anxiety ridden friend. "you have to calm down and enjoy the rest of the cruise. You have lived all your life with your mother in a comfort zone, but now your life has taken a change of course and you are freaking out because you didn't expect any of this to happen. You don't think you can cope but I think you will be fine."

Karo took a long breath and stared out the window to regain his composure, "I wonder when they will issue the call for dinner?"

Karo barely had to finish uttering the sentence when a knock came at the door. A servant stood patiently. He looked about thirty years old and clean shaven with short black hair and a dignified air that came from the kind of job where appearing dignified was a job qualification. He wore the neat long robes of the servants on the _Roku_ and looked absolutely like an insufferable snob. He cleared his throat and spoke, "we will serve the holiday feast in a few minutes, if you and the princess would please follow me to the dining hall?"

The Dining Hall was a formal room to enjoy dinner but on a scale that made many upscale restaurant bathrooms look roomy. The room had enough space to have a light table, space for a dozen guests and enough room to allow servants to squeeze past with trays of food and tea to pass over the heads of seated guests. The dim yellow light, dim candle light, the red carpeting, red wallpaper with gold dragons gave rise to a feeling of claustrophobia. Azula felt that feeling so well known by those traveling by air – the need to use the washroom and the inconvenience of climbing over other people to escape to the lavatory.

Lady Ursa sat next to Karo and she proposed a toast, "to the happy marriage of young Karo and Azula!" She elevated a glass of cider, "may they find happiness and long life."

Karo felt anxious and he smiled meekly and raised his glass of cider but took comfort in the lighting which reflected the tastes of vampires that made careful study of any face difficult.

Karo took a long drink and instantly regretted it. Karo had always avoided drinking and had only partaken of a few beer in his life. This 'cider' had an industrial strength kick to it and as it went down Karo had the feeling it had begun to digest his insides. He swallowed hard and felt ill.

Azula had sniffed the 'cider' first and set it aside and waited for tea. She had no tolerance for alcohol due to her mental illness and the medication needed to treat it and felt no humiliation in admitting her mother could drink her under the table and into liver failure. She sat next to Karo and nudged him to deliver a warning, "watch out for the cider – Fire Nation banana cider can be a wee bit strong."

"Eep!" Karo avoided breathing out in case the delicate red tapered candles set in the middle of the table might cause his breath to explode. "A wee bit strong? I can tall my friends what benzine tastes like."

Lady Mai and Zuko along with the captain sat across from them and Karo could imagine Mai stifling a bit of a laugh as she attended to Anya as the young child fussed in a high chair.

Zuko raised his glass, "to my new brother in law – and my sister."

"Drink up boy!" Lady Ursa put her hands around his waist, "how can I call you my son in law if I can out drink you."

The airship had shafts, vents, cables and wires running all over the ship. Mitsumi smelled food throughout the ship – Komodo Chicken, fine noodles, sea cucumber and fresh vegetables. He had grown hungry and decided to wander around the vents and pipes of the ship looking for bugs and finding none so he made his way to the source of the odor. Karo had avoided getting drunk but Lady Ursa had begun to feel very happy about her new son in law so in Karo's mind it came as some relief when Mitsumi fell down a vent in the ship and landed behind with a dull thud Fire Lord Zuko and then jumped on the table to help himself to a plate of cheese slices and black olives.

When the evening had ended with some nice food and many pleasant toasts; Lady Ursa had become quite drunk. She had toasted Henwa Island which she called a beautiful subtropical paradise with many big spiders; she had embarked on a performance of something she called the _Henwa Five – O_ theme and had told many charming if somewhat slurred stories about Azula in her youth. Karo knew next to nothing about Henwa Island and had not suspected it had a theme and had no idea what _Five – O_ did. Lady Mai left under the pretense of putting Anya to bed. Fire Lord Zhao left after a pleasant toast to Karo's bravery under the pretense that Anya would not sleep without a goodnight kiss form him. This left Lady Ursa, Karo, Mitsumi - who had eaten too many olives and made himself gassy and socially unacceptable - and Azula. Azula took charge and decided to return Lady Ursa safely to her quarters.

"Come on," Karo struggled keeping Lady Ursa upright by balancing her on his right side, "it is only twelve steps to your room and you can sleep it off."

"Do you know my mom stands a bit over six feet tall?" Azula held her mother from the other side, "she used to be quite famous as a star athlete in the Royal Fire Academy for Girls."

"Ow!" Karo grunted, "I suspected so much - she has hugged me with more force than a great white shark eating a seal."

Lady Ursa moaned as if to assure Karo and Azula she remained in the land of the living.

Azula reached for the door knob and slid the door to her mother's room to one side. Karo and Azula half helped and half slid Lady Ursa into her bed.

Azula whispered as she slid the door closed, "I would not want her headache in the morning."

Karo sighed with relief, "at least she didn't give me a concussion."

"The night is still young," Azula patted her fiance on the back.

Karo hesitated for a moment until he felt certain they had passed out of the earshot of Lady Ursa, "do you uh – er – think your mother might have a drinking problem?" He half expected Azula to rebuke him severely but she didn't.

"She married my father – the Great and Insane Phoenix King – quite frankly I'm surprised she can remain sober and sane after that experience." Azula answered in a manner that indicated that since Karo had become a family member that he now could see all the rough and ragged edges.

"And Henwa – 5- O?"

Azula pushed the door to their room to one side, "a famous Henwa police unit that tracked down criminals and had a marching band."

* * *

Henwa Island was a peanut shaped island about fourteen thousand square kilometers in size and ranked as the fourth largest island in the Fire Nation. It had a long tradition of independence and had become a Duchy under the control of the Fire Nation – basically a province which the Fire Nation had left alone as long as it minded its own business and didn't cause political problems. During the Great War, the Fire Nation kept Henwa Island under tight political control and bought co-operation by giving the Zhao family many important roles in the political and military life of the nation.

At two o'clock in the afternoon Karo saw the Island of Henwa from the airship. He saw a peninsula and a large seawall that belonged to the fishing port of Nichia – a pleasant looking town of around fifty thousand surrounded by orange groves on the rolling hills to the north. A railroad and a piano black steam locomotive pulling freight cars puffed along a railway that meandered along the coast and into the main harbor of Nichia. Azula could see Komatsu in a distant small valley nestled between the vast estate of the Zhao's and the waters of the northern coastline of the island. Unlike most islands of the Fire Nation, Henwa had no active volcanoes and the eons of erosion had sculpted the basalt into steep hills covered by houses, hearty looking hardwood tropical hardwood trees with verdant green leaves and orchards. The spine of mountains down the middle of the oddly peanut shaped island had become stumps of beautiful granite three kilometers tall. The airship flew along the coast and gave the passengers a view of the grand scenery of the island. Most Fire Nation denizens regarded Henwa Island as a bit backwater for it had no volcanoes and the climate encouraged a kind of laid back lifestyle opposed by the conservative element of Fire Nation Society. The island bathed in warm sunshine even in the winter and the beautiful surf crashed against white sand shores. Karo realized he could make a packet if he could show the rest of the world the natural beauty of the place.

Azula began humming a piece of music, "da dee da dee da!"

The theme they play at the beginning of those Kingdom Geographic Nickelodeon movies?" Karo looked out the window and watched the orange groves slide by. "You know the ones that have the polar bears approaching the caravan and the film crew and then fades to black?"

Azula replayed her memory back to the previous night and had another go, "da da da da da dee, da da da da dee!"

Mitsumi chattered nervously which in the narrative of Karo's life meant something bad would happen in the near future. Nothing happened as the airship descended over the city of Komatsu. Komatsu sprawled along a harbor hemmed in by a peninsula with a small, rocky hill and a lighthouse. It had a modern city center made of concrete and steel buildings surrounded by traditional Fire Nation houses that formed nice neighborhoods in the hills and valleys beyond the city center. The tall cranes of the harbor poked up over the flat roofed warehouses and a new but very swanky Fire Nation style train station sat at the fashionable end of the warehouse district. A row of fancy tourist hotels stood on the north end of town forming a line of five to ten story buildings along the long salt white sand beach that drew people to vacation there. The downtown had pleasant palm tree lined streets and Azula could see the people in the crosswalks ignoring the curvy looking motor cars and buses as they looked up to watch the airship descend. An omnibus type tram stopped as it slid along its electrical cables on its rails to allow the passengers to look out of the bus at the airship. The white tram had the city colors on it, a bright green and red set of horizontal racing stripes midway down the car with the logo of the city on the sides and unlike the trams in Ba Sing Se a side panel had an advertisement for _Wolfram Denki_ brand light bulbs with a picture of a happy housewife holding one in her right hand claiming they 'never go out'. The tram sped up to keep its appointed rounds and deliver its passengers to the residential neighborhoods that lined the city.

The airship headed for the north part of the city for a large airfield once named Admiral Zhao Military Field – now called the Lokipi Palms Airfield – named after the Lokipi Flats. A low rise set of buildings lined the field but the ship slid slowly towards a huge cylindrical building – a huge hangar. Four lines of a dozen men each formed on the grass to take the lines as if choreographed by some invisible choreographer. A crane painted bright red slid out on a set of four steel rails.

Karo barely noticed the ship stop moving as the men on the field grabbed a line and slowly pulled the nose of the ship onto a mechanical hook on the crane like those used to couple train cars together. A loud clang announced the nose of the ship had hooked onto the red crane.

Azula had visited Henwa Island once as she had embarked for the Earth Kingdom and disliked the easy going attitude of the people. Geography made Henwa Island quite different. The island's chain of volcanoes had long gone extinct and the island seldom had destructive earthquakes. Fire Nation scholars noted the small number of fire benders in the native population but Henwa had more air benders than any other place on Earth. The place names hinted at a native language spoken by the natives long before the Fire Nation came to rule the island – long polysyllabic names such as the Malakiki River, Lakalikami Bay, Lokipi Flats and the native name of the island had managed to keep – Henuahi'i. Geologists had later learned the island didn't belong to the archipelago of the Fire Nation but to the chain of islands that included Kyoshi Island, Whale Tale Island and the Island of the Southern Air Temple.

Azula watched as the ship slowly slid into the hangar and the irony of Karo becoming Duke of Henwa Island did not slip by her keen mind. She patted Karo on the back as if to congratulate him and said slyly, "Happy Festivus, the lands and all the people are yours to rule!"

Azula knew full well the Dukedom had long ago decided to go its own way with democracy and even Fire Lord Zhao found this province a bit of a thorny problem. During the War, the Fire Nation kept insurrection quiet but Henwa Island had more than its share of dissenters – the fire bending master Zhong Zhong had grown up in Nichia. The locals had never considered the Fire Nation War a just war and animosity had grown up between the island and the rest of the nation because of this. When Admiral Zhao vanished; a covert movement began to join the Earth Kingdom against the Fire Nation. When the War ended; this very nearly came to pass. Fire Lord Zuko had to make concessions to the provincial legislature to ensure the island remained part of the Fire Nation.

Karo didn't believe that for a minute and he had no desire to rule a people as his father had done. Fire Lord Zuko had decided to let Henwa Island run most of its own affairs but Karo knew that the Fire Lord wanted to place Karo in the throne of the Duke of Henwa Island to provide a kind of symbolic link to the Fire Nation. He knew the Provincial Legislature of Henwa Island had approved his return by a slim majority – considering the majority consisted of members of the Henwa Independence Party that was quite a feat. They wanted him in case they ever succeeded in achieving the two third majority in a referendum for independence: a king, even a powerless one, would provide a potent national symbol. Karo knew they would never achieve a two thirds majority but the people voted for the Independence Party because it served as a bribe for the post war government of Fire Lord Zuko. Henwa had become rich and industrialized and such a bribe protected their wealth from federal taxation and so kept the people here content.

* * *

"Can you drive?" Karo asked Azula.

"Better than you!" Azula snapped.

Karo chose to shut up: Mitsumi could drive better than he could and he lacked Azula's experience with military vehicles.

Azula had driven vehicles although she had the help of lackeys in her tenure as a Fire Nation operative. She had full familiarity with military vehicles and steam driven tanks but the automobile proved quite novel. The Fire Nation had generously provided the latest V-Model (the V stood for something about the gasoline engine) which had a solid steel roof, a sculpted smooth, curving body with a dark blue sapphire finish and chrome accents. Fire Lord Zuko and Lady Mai and Ursa had a larger red car but had a driver but had not yet decided to depart. The Duke and Duchess had no driver - someone in the Fire Nation department that planned these things had decided to leave Azula and Karo to figure out how to drive.

Azula turned a key and the machine rumbled to life, "see!"

Karo tightened the seat belt around his waist. Mitsumi tucked his head under his winged hands and whimpered.

Azula pulled a lever and the machine lurched into motion, "see!"

"I have seen cars and isn't the wheel to the left?" Karo asked carefully when he saw the wheel and shifter on the right. Very few people in Ba Sing Se had cars and fewer drove them in the city because compared to walking, driving was deadlier and far slower. Karo had seen various kinds of automobiles sitting in carriage houses now called garages as status symbols. The Fire Nation had invented the automobile and so it made sense to Karo that they should have come into their own in the post War Fire Nation.

The car jerked forward and sputtered and then slowly began to move forward past the hangar. It roared and accelerated as Azula took the wheel and made her best speed to the road that led to the estate. Karo felt like a martini, both shaken and stirred as the leaf springs under the axles did nothing to dampen the impact of striking holes on the dirt road. She turned onto a cobbled road without signaling with her hands or the signals the automotive engineers had provided and began to speed toward a small, black flatbed truck with chrome accents and a heavy steel bumper that had a load of wooden boxes strapped onto the platform at the back.

"They drive on the right or the left?" Azula swerved past the truck as if it meant nothing and shifted gears as she went up a shallow hill. "Left – that seems odd."

Karo found the cobbled road even less pleasant at the hair raising speed Azula chose to drive and looked at the speedometer, "a hundred clicks on this road and you don't know which _side to drive on!_" Karo watched helplessly as she shifted again, "this isn't a military tank – we don't have a foot of armor between us and what you will hit."

"I have good reflexes."

Karo gulped as they drove on a stone bridge built over a set of double train tracks and watched another car fly past, "famous last words – the dashboard is soft – that is a good thing. Big wooden sign and tree!"

"I know!" Azula made a sharp turn up a gravel road that had not seen a maintenance crew in many years and shifted down as Karo breathed out in relief as the car went from insane speeds to barely sane ones. Sad looking banana plants on either side of the road slapped the side of the car with their broad green leaves as Azula drove past.

Azula squealed to a halt in front of a very old Fire Nation palace that had seen more than its share of arsonists. Ivy grew up and in between the stones and brambles had taken over the front lawn. A large mahogany tree had fallen over in a typhoon and split the roof of the second story of the large house neatly in two and crushed everything under it.

Karo opened the door, "hold on, I need to kiss the ground! You know physics – after that trip how much slower will a watch run!"

"Welcome!" Azula opened her door and stood on the gravel road spreading her arms like an estates agent trying to make a sale, "welcome to the Zhao estate."

Karo looked up and shaded his eyes from the Sun, "the burned out upper story is a nice touch but something about this place tells me we will have to rent a small house in town."

Azula stamped her foot on the ground. "Oh nuts and honey!"

"What!" Karo looked at Azula as if she had just found a poisonous spider on her neck.

"We forgot to bring that trunk of gifts from the Fire Lord," Azula said in frustration, "now we have no gifts to open!"


End file.
